Content and news by Robert Tanner

Keeping track of company acquisitions can be tricky, and it is becoming particularly so when it comes to SandForce. In 2012, LSI acquired SandForce for $370 million, then at the start of 2014, Avago Technologies dropped a cool $6.6 billion to buy LSI. Now, Avago/LSI are liquidating LSI’s Accelerated Solution Division and Flash Components…..

News of an amazing SSD tweak has been making the rounds lately, and as an avid proponent of SSDs, I just had to take a closer look. Most articles pick up on the 300% performance increase, but given the claims appear to be too good to be true, I was initially doubtful.…..

The International is an annual professional Dota 2 tournament going on its fourth year. It set a record in 2011 for having the largest prize pool for any eSports event in history, but in 2013 Valve hit on the idea of partially crowdfunding the prize pool through sales of event compendiums. While…..

It was only a matter of time. In fact, it is intriguing that OCZ waited nearly five months since its acquisition by Toshiba to update the popular RevoDrive PCIe-based SSD with a model utilizing Toshiba’s own NAND. Nonetheless, the company has announced the new RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD. The only difference between…..

It’s understandable for an SSD manufacturer to change NAND suppliers during the lifespan of select models. In fact, it is a fairly common practice in the budget segment of the market where even a small difference in supply costs can make a large difference on the bottom line.  It can also occur…..

OCZ is well-known for its long history with unique and often exotic PCIe-based solid-state drive solutions, and as its new announcement of a brand-new Z-Drive model is its first since being acquired by Toshiba, it should make it interesting to watch. The Z-Drive 4500 is the successor to the venerable Z-Drive R4,…..

A little over a year ago, Intel turned a lot of heads when it launched its DC S3700 solid-state drives. The S3700 (and follow-up S3500) featured a completely new controller developed in-house by Intel with one primary goal: Very low access latency while maintaining strict performance consistency. It was a complete changeup…..

CES may be winding down, but one interesting tidbit hidden within the myriad of other Mushkin launches is that the company is already working on future solid-state drive releases featuring the upcoming LSI SandForce SF-3700 controller. SF-3700 “Griffin” will be the third-generation SandForce controller, but the first to be launched since LSI…..

For SSD enthusiasts, SandForce is an easily recognized name. Both generations of SandForce controllers launched with impressive performance for their time, partly thanks to a novel approach in controller design that remains unique to SandForce today. The announcement we’re talking about here will make for the first controller to benefit directly from LSI’s…..

OCZ Technology has just launched the Vector 150 series solid-state drives, a welcome update to its flagship Vector brand. Amongst the changes, the 25nm IMFT NAND is out in favor of 19nm NAND from Toshiba. The drive continues to use OCZ’s in-house Barefoot 3 controller but receives a long-awaited tweak to give…..

Cherry MX Clear keyboards are among the rarest of rare types to find, and assuming you can find one, then you can forget about any extra features or functionality. In recent months, even those that feature Cherry MX Green keys have become easier to find by comparison, which is particularly odd considering…..

Corsair is at it again, this time announcing the new Force LS product family. Despite the name, there isn’t any SandForce controller to be found. Instead, Corsair is packing a Phison 6Gb/s controller inside, with transfer speeds reportedly rated up to 555MB/s reads and 525MB/s writes. Although not widely known, Phison isn’t…..

Enthusiast SSDs may get all of the fame and glory, but it’s the value brands that always sell the most drives. As a relative newcomer that doesn’t rely on SandForce controllers like many other vendors do, can SanDisk’s Marvell-equipped Ultra Plus deliver that “Ultra” good value we’re looking for?

In what may be a very anti-climatic launch for currently active Dota 2 players, Valve has given word that the game has (finally) gone gold. Considering that Dota 2 has been in “beta” since 2011 and already consists of the largest playerbase ever for any game Valve has previously released, this might…..

Say it ain’t so. Intel has reaffirmed its devotion to artificial market segmentation with a surprise Haswell owners may not have been expecting. The Tech Report’s eagle-eyed Geoff Gasior has apparently confirmed Intel has removed user configurable adjustments to the Turbo Boost functionality of its Haswell processors. At this point, only already-unlocked…..

Computex 2013 has kicked-off, and just about every recognizable name in PCs is there with new products, OCZ Technology included. OCZ started off by announcing that it has reworked its 550W and 750W Fata1ty branded PSUs, utilizing premium components and heavy-duty protection circuitry in order to offer reliability and performance that gamers…..

News broke late Friday that Andrew Scott Reisse, Co-Founder of Oculus VR, had been killed during a hit-and-run incident in Santa Ana, California. There are still conflicting details as to the specifics, but what is known so far indicates that Reisse was a pedestrian walking along when a police chase involving a…..

It wasn’t that long ago that OCZ launched its completely in-house and widely acclaimed Vector SSD family (our review) as the company’s flagship solid-state drive, seemingly ending the long and rich history of the Vertex name. Apparently, that has now changed as OCZ announced late last week the Vertex 450 SSD, utilizing a…..

Fans of the Civilization V: Gods & Kings expansion (our review) are in for a treat! Firaxis is set to launch the second major expansion to the Civ V franchise this July. Just as Gods & Kings radically rebalanced many aspects of the game and added additional eras to the technology timeline,…..

Recently, OCZ began simplifying its SSD product line quite significantly in order to make the decision-making process easier for consumers. This was also encouraged by the fact that even budget models today offer some great performance. OCZ’s Vertex 3.20 targets that market, replacing the Agility and Vertex 3. Is it a worthy successor?